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A HOLE

Thomas sighed and took a drink. “Now I
understand why you asked me to come fix your wall instead of calling your
landlord.”

Will shrugged. “Yeah, that’s part of it.”

Thomas just stared at the giant hole in
the wall. “I mean, what the hell did you do? I figured you just punched the
wall or something.”

“Nah. I did it on purpose.”

Thomas shook head and finished his beer.
“I don’t know, man. I agreed to do this for a six-pack, but this is gonna be a
big job.”

“That’s fine, man. I got a bottle of vodka.”

“That’ll do.”

Will left the living room to get another
beer for his friend from the kitchen. While he was gone, Thomas bent down to
get a better look at the damage. Make sure none of the wiring was messed up or
anything.

Everything looked fine, other than the
fact that his friend had a hole the size of a big-screen TV in his living room
wall. Then he noticed something weird. At first it didn’t even register in his
brain, because it was so out of place. He leaned in closer, wondering if the
shadows inside the wall were playing tricks on him.

But they weren’t. What he saw was real.

There was doll furniture sitting inside the hole in his friend’s wall.

Thomas cocked his head like a confused
dog. There was a tiny table with three tiny chairs around it. He leaned in
closer and looked beyond the point where the wall was broken. A little further
down he saw what looked to be a tiny living room.

A tiny couch and coffee table. There was even a tiny piano.

Thomas turned his head the other way.
That way was a tiny bedroom. A big canopy bed that was tiny and a tiny dresser
next to it. There was even a tiny toilet. He wanted to touch it but was
terrified that it might actually flush.

What the hell was going on?

Had his friend discovered a family of
tiny people living inside his walls? Was that why he had broken his wall all to
hell? Had he heard a tiny family moving around in his walls at night while the
house was quiet and gone in to investigate?

The idea was too absurd and he immediately dismissed the questions.

He was so lost in this tiny world for
just a few moments that he jumped when he heard Will walk up behind him.

“Jesus, dude, you scared me. What are you doing?”

“I brought you another beer.”

Thomas stood up and accepted the beer.
“No. I mean, why is there tiny furniture in your wall?”

Will opened his own beer and drank. “Oh, that. I did that.”

Thomas opened his beer and drank it quickly. “Well, yeah, I figured that out. But why?”

“I dunno. Because someday some family
might open up this wall and it might make their day. Maybe the family will have
children and it will change how they look at the world forever.” Will shrugged.
“The world kinda sucks, and it’s my little way of trying to add something good,
ya know?”

Thomas narrowed his eyes. “Dude, you know you that sounds crazy, right?”

Will smirked. “Yeah. But for a second,
you kinda wondered if there was a family of little people living inside my
walls, didn’t you?”

Thomas huffed and finished his beer. “No, dude, I’m not an idiot.”

Will stared at him silently.

Thomas quietly looked at the wall for a
few moments before he spoke again. “Go get the vodka. We have a lot of work to
do tonight.”

Jason Armstrong lives in Nebraska with his wife and son. He hopes that his landlord doesn’t read this story.